Jumping The Shark - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Jump The Shark; Jumped The Shark; Shark Jump

And then it all went downhill.

The way I see it, it's really not jumping the shark if you never come back down.

- Chuck, Supernatural Season Five

Jumping The Shark is the moment when an established show changes in a significant manner in an attempt to stay fresh. Ironically, that moment makes the viewers realise that the show has finally run out of ideas. It has reached its peak, it will never be the same again, and from now on it's all downhill.

Some examples of clues which may indicate that a show's made the "jump":

Cast Changes:

A popular character is removed from the show, or even killed off. Especially true if the method of removal is unsatisfying or mean-spirited.
One of the main actors quits, so a new actor is forced to play his character since the character is too important to Put On A Bus. This is somewhat more forgivable in an animated series if the new voice actor sounds enough like the old one that nobody notices.
Alternatively, the writers pen a replacement character who isn't as compelling as the one who left.
A new character is introduced who earns the hatred of the fandom for whatever reason.

Character Development:

The Scrappy is given more spotlight and screen time, which sometimes exonerates him through character development, but more often turns him into The Wesley.
An existing character evolves in a way that flattens rather than enriches him, or which contradicts prior depictions of the character. This can have the effect of alienating fans.
The Official Couple resolves their UST too early and shippers start to lose interest in the show.

Plot Development:

The show's premise is radically altered, such as having the characters change careers or move to a new location.
Conversely, the show drags on too long without any sort of progress or resolution. May be the result of too much Filler or overreliance on Failure Is The Only Option.
The show experiences Mood Whiplash in an unbelievable manner - typically a result of Executive Meddling wanting to make the show Darker And Edgier or Lighter And Softer.
- A jarring rise in the Sliding Scale Of Villain Threat, unless it is written well and\or used for comedic purposes. For example, a Big Bad trying to take over the local 7-11 is usurped by one bent on destroying the galaxy.
One of the writers puts too much of himself into the show, to its detriment. He may use it as a pulpit to preach his personal beliefs in a heavy-handed manner, or to display personal kinks which Squick the audience out.
A baby is added to an otherwise-adult show (for instance, the final season of Get Smart) where ill-suited addition of childish themes and endless babytalk from characters who were once-intelligent speaking adults fatally alters the character dynamic.
The plot is resolved with one too many stupid plot twists, which turns the audience away.
A show's Crowning Moment Of Awesome — in the sense that the show never lives up to said moment again, despite trying.

Gimmicks:

The show starts relying too much on 'special guest stars' (especially if they're celebrities playing themselves) which wreck the verisimilitude of the show.
Graphical gimmicks such as 3D are used to shore up failing character development.
The Movie of the series is released, after which the creativity level of the actual show starts to wane.
A major plot point is apparently resolved only to be immediately unresolved - over and over again.

Too many shark-jumping moments in a row can spell Seasonal Rot.

This expression originates from the episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie literally jumped over a shark on water-skis.

Gary Marshall tirelessly reminds us that Happy Days went on for a number of years after the original shark jump, misunderstanding a phrase that judges suckyness, not success. Henry Winkler has elsewhere commented that he's happy with the popularity of the phrase, as its usage in a magazine is often accompanied by a photo of him during a time in his life when he had great legs.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull introduced "Nuking The Fridge" as a synonymous phrase. Whether or not it will see sort of wide usage is up in the air. At least one reviewer of the Twilight movie has suggested 'The vampires are playing baseball' as another synonym and potential replacement.

Contrast Growing The Beard, Win The Crowd. For a related phenomenon, see Franchise Original Sin. For a video game related phenomenon (going into 3D ruins the franchise), see Polygon Ceiling.

When the people start claiming something is a shark jumping moment right after it happens, see Ruined FOREVER.

JumpTheShark.com

used to be run by writer Jon Hein, who coined the term with his friends in the mid-1980's. Maintained an ongoing list of series killing moments (granted, you could vote for every cause, and shows commonly had "Day One" as an option). The website lists actor Ted McGinley as their "patron saint", for he has the most television roles in which series slowly died off after his first appearance. The longest-lasting show with Ted in a starring role was Married With Children, where he went for seven seasons after replacing David Garrison (Steve Rhoades). Ironically, the site itself jumped the shark in January 2009, when it was merged into the TV Guide website, had its content removed along with the voting system, and became a blog by writer Erin Fox. (BoneTheFish.com

is one website that bills itself as a successor to the "old" JumpTheShark.com.)

There is some evidence

that jumping the shark has no real effect on a show's success.

There are really too many to list here, and it is probably the most subjective article we have, so we are not listing any examples. This pages lists references to the phrase instead.

References:

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Comic Books

Fan Fics

Live Action TV

In the Arrested Development episode "Motherboy XXX", Barry Zuckercorn (played by Henry Winkler, Fonzie himself) visits Buster on a dock, where his hand has been eaten by a seal. On his way to make a Product Placement for Burger King, he is forced to physically jump over the shark.
Stargate SG 1: In the self-referential 200th episode, Marty responds to the suggestion of doing the Wormhole X-Treme! movie with Thunderbirds-style puppets by sarcastically suggesting that they have Puppet O'Neill jump over a puppet shark on a scale motorcycle.
30 Rock. In the episode The One With the Cast of Night Court, Jenny Maroney was blamed by Harry Anderson, Markie Post, and Charles Johnson for making Night Court "jump the shark" for her three part episode as werewolf lawyer Sparky Monroe.
Harry: You made us jump the shark! You're the reason we didn't have a tenth season!
Markie: I had just bought my second home when they brought that idiot werewolf lawyer in!
Jenna: (insulted) Uh, that "idiot werewolf" paid for my hand reduction surgery, okay?
The fifth-season premiere of Reno 911!, entitled "Jumping the Shark", featured Lt. Dangle actually attempting to jump over a normal fish tank containing a small shark. Naturally, he doesn't quite make it over, and Hilarity Ensues. Incidentally, it was the first new episode to be aired after the release of The Movie, which can also be a major shark-jumping point for some shows.
Johnny Keogh from Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps was killed (offscreen) in a tragic accident involving him attempting to jump over a shark whilst on holiday. This was a reference by the writer to effectively lampshade what she had to do when the actor left, new characters were introduced and it still enjoyed some success after this.
In the CSI episode "Two and a Half Deaths" (written by the Two And A Half Men writers), Captain Brass (in reference to a character winning money on a sitcom - a Take That against the last season of Roseanne) says that that's when the show "jumped the shark."
An episode of That 70's Show in which Fez, imagining how cool it would be to be the Fonzie, has a daydream of himself performing the original jump. Hyde comments that this was the worst moment in television history, and Fez confesses that he stopped watching the show after that. It's interesting, because this is more of a modern perspective rather than one commonly held at the time it aired... like pretty much everything on That 70s Show.
In the last episode of Boston Legal after Alan accepts Denny's proposal of marriage Denny says "It'll be great! Like jumping a shark!"
The producers of Lost have referred to the scene at the end of season 3 where Jack's flashbacks were really flashforwards as the moment where their show "jumped the shark," however, they are apparently unaware this is usually a negative term and that perhaps they should stop using it to refer to their show. The moment in question actually IS where the show Jumped The Shark in the eyes of many fans, although for others it had the opposite effect as well.
An episode of Supernatural featured a kid who is believed to be the third Winchester brother. The name of the episode? Jump the Shark. Oh yeah, and the diner where they meet the kid? Cousin Oliver's.
A recent episode of House had House, bored out of his skull during clinic duty, constructing a racetrack from medical tape, tongue depressors, and cards. At the end of the track is a ramp, and under the ramp? A shark. Cuddy catches the car in midair, before it reaches the shark. But maybe the writers are telling us something....
The penultimate episode of The X-Files is titled "Jump the Shark". In it, The Lone Gunmen—the quirky trio of conspiracy theorists that had lasted the show's entire run and gotten their own failed spin off—end up thwarting a terrorist's plot to use a neurotoxin made from sharks (somehow). Unfortunately, they died in the process.
Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide has an episode about making and taking dares that incorporates one character jumping a bicycle over a tank with a shark in it.
In the Pushing Daisies (somewhat rushed) finale, the Victim Of The Week was killed by accidentally leaping into the mouth of a shark. Lampshade Hanging? You decide!
The Trailer Park Boys episode "Jump The Cheeseburger".
Web Soup host Chris Hardwick used this phrase when their video in their Things You Can't Un-See segment was legitimately disgusting and nauseating. It was a gaping foot wound, which was crawling with live maggots.

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Video Games

Web Original

Web Comics

Lampshade Hanging on it in this strip of Dan And Mabs Furry Adventures
The obligatory Penny Arcade strip [1]
In Bitmap World, the phrase is used to indicate its very silly and literal meaning. The creators insist that this does not mean their relatively new strip (at the time of publication) is headed in that direction.
In Bruno The Bandit, the protagonist literally has to jump a shark, to be more successful getting readers.
Schlock Mercenary uses a gag about a shark tank and a motorcycle ramp as a promise that even though the strip's invoking Time Travel as a Reset Button, it's just this once and that's not what it's going to be all about from now on. [2]
The 542nd strip of Order Of The Stick is named "In Azure City, Shark Jumps You!". In addition to the obvious Russian Reversal, this is also an actual description of the strip's contents.
Melonpool, after a decade of time-travel history-changing shenanigans, had gotten so convoluted that the author decided on a massive retcon, whose fuzzy science rationale actually had the acronym Jump the S.H.A.R.K..
Irregular Webcomic addressed Jumping The Shark (both literally and figuratively) in a arc starting here.
Clip-art webcomic Partially Clips lampshades its own potential shark-jumping here.
A Freefall strip features a shark tank, but warns people away from jumping over it.
In Absurd Notions, several years in, the characters buy an aquarium and get a pet Bala shark. They decide that, given that they introduced the shark as a new character to breathe new life into their lives, which had gotten boring, the only honest name to give the shark was "Jump".
This and the Cousin Oliver trope gets referenced in this Something Positive strip where the writers for Monette's show discuss future plots.
Gordito in The Adventures Of Dr Mc Ninja literally jumped over a winged, flying shark. The alt-text defended the move with "Look, it was the only way he could dodge it". Of course, by Dr Mc Ninja standards this isn't that unusual an event.
Heywood in Mynarski Forest replicated the Fonz's jump, in the strip's background, in mocking recognition that the comic had just had two stories in a row turn out to be All Just A Dream.
xkcd has this comic's Alt Text of "Dinosaurs totally jumped the ichthyosaur when they got rid of the brontosaurus."

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Western Animation

Sealab 2021, "Sharko's Machine": Sharko (A Cousin Oliver parody who is Marco's half-shark illegitimate son) is seen jumping over several Fonzies during an absurd Hard Work Montage.
Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends, "Sweet Stench of Success", when Bloo becomes an advertising icon who gets his own sitcom spinoff. The preview after the very first episode is "tune in next week when Deo jumps a shark!"
- In the final episode, "Goodbye to Bloo", Bloo thinks Mac is moving away forever, and tries to come up with something big they can do for their last day together. After Mac shoots down several of his suggestions as things they have already done before (they are in fact references to the plots of previous episodes), Bloo decides that the only thing left to do is to Jump The Shark. Unable to find a shark in time, he settles for walking over a fish with a paper fin on a bowl.
Kim Possible addresses thoughts on jumping the shark, by hanging up on Ron when he brings it up.
- This Fanfiction takes the idea a bit further, parodying Happy Days and then revealing it all as just a dream.
One episode of Dora The Explorer had Dora use Jump Star to "jump the shark".
One episode of Squidbillies shown Rusty watching a TV show in a dramatic way, showing a Mailman delivering mail into a mailbox. What is worth a mention in this article is Early commenting on the show with the trope name.
Velma from Scooby Doo remarks, "I never thought I'd see Scooby-Doo jump the shark." in a "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" episode.
One "Previously On" for a two-part episode of South Park had scenes of Fonzie about to jump a shark cut in. Then when he makes the jump, he gets eaten, seeming to say "Not yet, viewers".
My Life As A Teenage Robot "In-Des-Tuck-Able" serves as the final episode were Tuck is performing a series of dangerous stunts including riding a motorcycle over a Shark Pool. Brad provides the lampshading. "Once you jump the shark, the show is over."
The Simpsons lampooned this trope by showing an episode where Bart buys a race horse (Lisa already did that), Lisa notices Marge's gambling problem (we already know that) and adds an improbable twist that horse jockeys are elves in disguise (complete with schlocky musical number). Lampshaded by Comic Book Guy when he is seen wearing a "Worst Episode Ever" shirt.
- The Simpsons has made more direct references. One Couch Gag had the family do it to land on the couch, only for Homer to lose both legs. Additionally, one of the Clip Show episodes featured a song lampshading both clip shows and the sort of absurd plots that normally constitute a shark-jump, complete with a still image of Homer on waterskis...well, you get the picture.
- In the second season, motorcycle daredevil Lance Murdoch literally jumped over a shark (and a few other animals besides).
During the Teen Titans episode where the Titans chased Control Freak into TV land, Robin finds himself on some kind of action challenge show being forced by a suspiciously familiar looking host with a funny accent to waterski off a ramp, at which point a shark leaps out of the water underneath him.